Peyton Reed Is Gracious Over Saturn Award Win And Gives Insight Into Ant-Man And The Wasp

Earlier in the week we shared thatAnt-Man and Daredevil were recognized at the 42nd Annual Saturn Awards. The annual event is an award ceremony meant to honor the best works of science fiction, fantasy, and horror. Ant-Man was a surprise win in the Best Comic-to-Film Motion Picture category, and was nominated in six different categories. According to director Peyton Reed, in an interview with Modern Myth Media, just being at the awards was an honor.

It’s great! I have never been to the Saturn Awards, but I’ve always wanted to and now I have a legitimate excuse to be here, so that alone makes it worth it. It’s fantastic. [Ant-Man] is the kind of movie that I wanted to make for a really long time and to finally have the opportunity is great. The fact that people liked it is even better.

Of course, winning is better than just being invited, which puts Ant-Man in an elite group with past Saturn Award winners such as Iron Man, The Avengers, Iron Man 3, and Guardians of the Galaxy. While beinga director for Marvel already groups him with the creators of those movies, he is now in the subset of Marvel directors that have won at the Saturn Awards.

Well that’s pretty nice company to be in. I’m thrilled, man. I’m really thrilled because, again, I’ve always wanted to come to the Saturn Awards, so to be here and actually win something, I’m psyched.

In fact, one of Ant-Man’s biggest competitors was within Marvel, as Avengers: Age Of Ultron was also nominated in the same category. While Avengers: Age Of Ultron brought in more money at the box office, Modern Myth Media asked Reed if he was interested in the power of these bragging rights within Marvel.

Oh yeah, we’ll see. I always loved that about Ant-Man anyway that he was sort of a lesser known character and a character that in the real world and also in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, people might have really low expectations of him as a hero and he obviously proves them otherwise. I feel the same about the movie. We had an amazing cast- Paul [Rudd] and Evangeline [Lilly], and Michael Douglas and Michael Peña. You kinda can’t lose with that cast.

The titular character of his fantastic cast has already been seen again, in Captain America: Civil War, when Ant-Man was brought in for Team Cap. This was the first time that we got to see the character transform in the other direction, becoming Giant-Man, during the epic airport fight. Reed admits that he was a little bit jealous when he learned that this was going to happen.

Well I was super jealous about a year and change or whenever I knew that that was happening. I was like. ‘Oh my God, they get to do the Giant Man reveal!’ I had a little bit of a professional envy going on. But I’m thrilled! I love the Giant Man stuff in the movie. And so many people saw Civil War, I think it’s gonna be great for us. And Paul [Rudd] is so good. I was actually with Paul today, we’re in the writing phase right now. He’s so good as that character and we have so much more in store for our movie.

The sequel to Ant-Man, titled Ant-Man And The Wasp, is currently in the development stages still allowing the writers to really delve into where the character is after that events of Civil War. What effect will fighting with Captain America have on our hero when we see him next?

Well he’s a fugitive in most of the first Ant-Man movie. He’s just a bigger fugitive now. I think that’s one of the fun things and challenges about the Marvel movies for us, for the directors and for the writers, is you do have to sort of consider what happened in the previous movies in terms of your jumping-off point for those characters. It’s something we talked a lot about early on and we definitely have stuff figured out, so there will be some big leaps forward.

This next movie will also bring about a female super-hero, with Evangeline Lilly returning as Hope van Dyne, who will become The Wasp.

It’s something we’re excited about. For me as a comic nerd, I always thought of Ant-Man and Wasp as a team and that’s a lot of what the second movie is really about is how they work together, what their personal and professional relationships are like. To show her finally fully formed in this movie is really exciting. We really get to introduce this character into that universe. I mean we’ve introduced the character, but we haven’t seen her with her full power set and everything, so to me she’s not a supporting character in this movie. It’s every bit as much her movie as it is Scott Lang’s.

This is good to hear, as the audience is more frequently looking to see characters of every race and gender in a leading role. The comics have had success with many female leading ladies, but Reed was vague about revealing which ones he’s looking to for inspiration.

I’m cutting a wide swath on that stuff. I go back to early, early Avengers stuff and all the way up to the Nick Spencer stuff now. I just sort of devour it all. And really in terms of maybe even more than story stuff, just looking at imagery and for me what were iconic images and how we can squeeze those into the movie.

Michael Peñahas previously said that he assumed he would be returning as Luis, a fan favorite from the first movie. Evidently, that hasn’t been officially determined, at this point.

Oh there’s definitely a chance! I’d say there’s a fighting chance for that to happen.

Ant-Man and The Wasp is scheduled for release on July 6th, 2018. What are you hoping to see in this next installment of the series?

I'm a master of the Netflix Corner of the MCU. I spend my free time obsessing over water towers in New York, finding new topics to podcast, and trying to pass suggestions to Marvel Television. Rumors of Jeph Loeb having a restraining order drafted for me are entirely untrue.